Family and Work: The Family's Perspective

11 Future Intentions

11.1 How Children Want to Combine Family and Work
11.2 Conclusions

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11.1 How Children Want to Combine Family and Work

Galinksy asked children whether they thought that they would manage work and family in the same way as their parents had. 36% said that they would manage work and family in a very similar way, and 37% said that they would do it somewhat similarly. Rather than asking this question in direct reference to parents' behaviour, this study sought to reduce any effects of social desirability or loyalty to parents, and asked in a more straightforward way, how children intended to work and how they intended to work when they had a family.

Thus, responses to these questions revealed particularly fascinating insights, because they did not require a child to criticise their parents' own choices, but they did allow them to incorporate their evaluation of those choices into their own intentions. Based on the future intentions of the children interviewed for this study, the issue of how families navigate work and family is going to remain high on the agenda in the future. It is notable that nearly all the children in this sample said that when they have children they intended to work. They clearly had a sense of the personal importance of working. More than this, however, they had very clear ideas about how they wanted to work. Most of the children, both boys and girls, said that they would work not at all or part-time for at least the early part of their children's lives, perhaps returning to full-time work as their children got older. Nearly all the children referred to being able to spend enough time with their children. Supporting the earlier observation about the centrality of school as a key access point for the middle primary years, several children mentioned being able to pick up children from school at least some of the time as a primary aim of any work schedule.

I would probably try and work weekdays, like Monday to Thursday, so on Fridays I could pick them up from school, and I would have the weekend free. So a couple of days free.
[boy, 13]

I'd probably work as much as I had to work, no more. [How would you judge how much you had to work?] I'd sort of go for a job that I liked. If the time that I had to work was reasonable I would. And if it was too small I wouldn't mind and if it was just too much I wouldn't. [What would be too much?] More than 8 hours. Or maybe 8 and a half or 9, no, not 9, I don't think I could work that much.
[boy,11]

[How many hours would you want to work?] Well, I wouldn't want to do shifts because they could end up really early in the morning or late at night. [What would be bad about that?] Well, maybe they might not get to spend as much time with the kids.
[boy, 13]

When you first have kids, take a bit of time off and when they start getting older start doing part-time work and then when they are at school you could go back to work full-time or something.
[girl, 16]

One child talked about monitoring the impact of work on her children. She referred also to the differences in the way that children can respond to parents working full-time.

I'd probably start off part-time, and then as they get older or whatever, I might get into full-time. Sometimes full-time can be a bit of a strain on your kids. It just depends which way kids handle it…
[girl, 16]

Some children were quite explicit about planning the way they would work when they had a family by considering what they liked or disliked about their own experiences.

I'd try and work 5 days a week because I'm going to try and keep in mind all the stuff I like when I was a kid and put it into their point of view so I can try my best to do it. Like, if I liked it when my dad came home on the Saturday and Sunday then I'd try and come home on Saturday and Sunday for my kids.
[boy, 11]

It depends on what the job is. 'Cause some days… I wouldn't want them to go to after care every day like what I had to do. I hated it.
[girl, 12]

11.2 Conclusions

The theme of the importance of achieving a balance between work and family is very strong in children's responses to the question of their future intentions. These children were fairly united in their view of the ideal way to work and have children, in that they expected to work and to have time with their children. Their attempt to quantify the way that they would achieve this goal was usually in terms of working "part-time". It is clear that all the children, both boys and girls, expected to have substantial involvement in their own children's lives, but that they did not necessarily expect to have to choose between work and parenting. They expected to be able to do both. In this they seemed to be reflecting the struggle that many of their parents were going through trying to feel fulfilled in more than one role.

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